agreements when as registrars they registered names exceeding the number permitted
by their license agreements and when they registered names on which they didn't hold
TMs and current registrations in the .com, .net and .org. I don't think these
breaches constitute civil/criminal offences which would land them in front of a judge.
However,
they may have breached TM laws when preregistering for Sunrise.
I have posted on
several occassions that ICANN staff are aware that Afilias (and Neulevel) are cybersquatting
and in their opinion there is ample evidence of breach of registry agreements to
warrant both registries having their licenses suspended and fined. The same source
indicated that as the BoDs of the companies were such close political bedfellows
- it is unlikely that any ICANN action would occur. (ICANN is a Public Benefit
Corporation - yes it's true!)
I don't think we will know if ICANN takes any action
- unless we get lucky and come across any General Assembly emails like the one titled
"Afilias is cybersquatting" to which I refer, as I think such action is confidential.
I
don't know if claiming to have a TM by way of providing false TM details constitutes
a breach of TM laws. I have previously posted that I thought that it did, as
the cybersquatters sought gain from knowingly falsifying TM details. (I think
I remember that somewhere in the Afilias Sunrise rules was a statement that falsifying
TM details as so many did constituted a breach of TM laws.)
But who is going to
act against the board members and other registrars who cheated in Sunrise (and Plankenstein
et al) by claiming to hold current national TMs? ICANN? Afilias?
Not likely on recent performances. Not likely evidently with the current influential
members of the respective BODs.
Which raises a question. What sort of culture
exists in ICANN and Afilias (and may be Neulevel) which results in the rules being
broken by those who make the rules, and apparently their belief that they won't be
caught or penalised, despite the fact that any one of us can look up a whois, do
TM checks and count to ten?
I would like legal opinion as to whether claiming to
hold a TM as many did for the Sunrise lottery constitutes a breach of TM laws.
I have yet to see an authoritative opinion.
As for William Lorenz - I don't think
he would be judged guilty. He was a victim of the Afilias policy - we will
register anything in Sunrise, as long as your credit card is good for the registration.
In
having such a policy - (and more of us are believing that it was a part of the business
plan and not by chance that 10,000 plus registrations were completed for applications
containing false TM details) - it was Afilias and the majority of the registrars
committing the fraud, against the honest Sunrisers and Landrushers.
Who will give
us a legal opinion on the falsification TM details in circumstances as we had in
the .info Sunrise?
Who will take legal action if breaches occurred? Who reports
what to whom?
Whether or not TM laws were broken, let Afilias keep the money from
the registrations they completed for names with false and no (Lorenz style)TM data
- unless a judge finds Afilias complicit of course - and return the names to the
public in the only equitable means possible - by Landrush II for holders of Landrush
I preregistrations.
We can guess that Herr Plankenstein did not have a lot of competition
for every flyspeck on the Austrian map, but that still leaves 5,000 odd names which
Afilias's, through its approved registrars, sold again and again and again and again
and.................... in the form of Landrush preregistrations.
Don't let Afilias
try to sell the chance of winning those 5,000 plus names again and again and again
and again and......................
A lot of us invested a hell of a lot of money
in Landrush - which just didn't happen for 10,000 odd names which were removed from
the lottery prize list because the lottery organiser "honoured" dodgy tickets for
Sunrise - which it had sold through its network of ticket sellers.
Afilias can
redeem itself somewhat with an announcement, very soon, advising Landrushers of the
details of Landrush II.
The Landrushers deserved better!!!!!!!!!!!